Getters and setters are often criticized as being not proper OO. On the other hand most OO code I've seen has extensive getters and setters.

When are getters and setters justified? Do you try to avoid using them? Are they overused in general?

If your favorite language has properties (mine does) then such things are also considered getters and setters for this question. They are same thing from an OO methodology perspective. They just have nicer syntax.

Sources for Getter/Setter Criticism (some taken from comments to give them better visibility):

To state the criticism simply: Getters and Setters allow you to manipulate the internal state of objects from outside of the object. This violates encapsulation. Only the object itself should care about its internal state.

The getters and setters made the code much more complicated without affording proper encapsulation. Because the internal state is accessible to other objects we don't gain a whole lot by adding these getters and setters.

16 Answers
16

Having getters and setters does not in itself break encapsulation. What does break encapsulation is having a getter and a setter for every data member (every field, in java lingo). That is one step away from making all data members public.

The point of encapsulation is not that you should not be able to know or to change the object's state from outside the object, but that you should have a reasonable policy for doing it.

Consider an example of a class Person. Let's say a person has a name, a social security number, and an age. Let's say that we do not allow people to ever change their names or social security numbers. However, the person's age should be incremented by 1 every year. In this case, you would provide a constructor that would initialize the name and the SSN to the given values, and which would initialize the age to 0. You would also provide a method incrementAge(), which would increase the age by 1. You would also provide getters for all three. No setters are required in this case.

In this design you allow the state of the object to be inspected from outside the class, and you allow it to be changed from outside the class. However, you do not allow the state to be changed arbitrarily. There is a policy, which effectively states that the name and the SSN cannot be changed at all, and that the age can be incremented by 1 year at a time.

Now let's say a person also has a salary. And people can change jobs at will, which means their salary will also change. To model this situation we have no other way but to provide a setSalary() method! Allowing the salary to be changed at will is a perfectly reasonable policy in this case.

By the way, in your example, I would give the class Fridge the putCheese() and takeCheese() methods, instead of get_cheese() and set_cheese(). Then you would still have encapsulation.

Haha, I'd like to see the ad for that: "It's a brand new kind of fridge: It throws things at you when trying to grab something that isn't there! This way you will only try that once! You worry about stuffing the fridge, and let the fridge worry about illegal behaviour!"
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gablinNov 27 '10 at 9:13

4

+1 This explanantion is better than any I found in books.
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Oliver WeilerApr 11 '11 at 7:40

7

The example has it all wrong. There should not be an Age field nor a setAge() method. Age is a function of the Person birthDate as compared to some point in time. While seemingly trivial, this is exactly what is wrong with the modern practice of full mutability of objects and other bad designs, as seen by get/set methods for private fields versus carefully considering what is really mutable, what is a field, what the object should know about its behaviors and what state changes are actually valid (which setX methods completely destroy).
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Darrell TeagueJul 21 '14 at 18:49

That is a language limitation. The real question is whether we should be allowing other objects to manipulate that state.
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Winston EwertNov 26 '10 at 23:05

3

@Peter Turner, clearly nothing prevents a language from having interfaces that include properties. Under the covers that may well be implemented as getter/setter but it would be easy enough to add support to interface definitions for properties.
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Winston EwertNov 26 '10 at 23:54

2

@Winston, you will eventually need to allow classes to pass information back and forth between each other to actually get work done. What would you suggest instead?
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user1249Nov 27 '10 at 6:38

4

An object is supposed to provide a higher level interface to it innards. Getters and Setters tend to be a low level interface. For example, suppose you have a class that implements a binary tree. You could have functions like GetLeft(), GetRight(), GetValue(), and GetKey() in order to navigate the tree. But that is the completely wrong approach. Your binary tree class should provide operations like Find, Insert, Delete.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 14:51

4

To take another example, consider a tetris piece. The tetris piece has some internal state like block_type, rotation, position. You could have getters like GetBlockType(), GetRotation(), GetPosition(). But you really shouldn't. What you should have is a GetSquares() method which returns a list of all of the squares occupied by this piece. You also shouldn't have stuff like SetPosition() or SetRotation(). Instead, you should have operations like MoveLeft(), MoveRight(), Rotate(), Fall().
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 14:55

Well, clearly I prefer the latter approach; it doesn't bleed implementation details, it's simpler and more concise, and all of the needed information is included with the method call, so it's easier to get it right. I also prefer setting private members using parameters in the constructor, whenever possible.

Your question is, when is a getter/setter justified? Perhaps when a mode change is needed, or you need to interrogate an object for some information.

myObject.GetStatus();
myObject.SomeCapabilitySwitch = true;

In thinking about it, when I first started coding in C#, I wrote a lot of code in the Javabeans style illustrated above. But as I gained experience in the language, I began doing more setting of members in the constructor, and using methods that looked more like the above OO style.

Why is the "give all arguments as parameters" OO-style?
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user1249Nov 27 '10 at 6:39

4

While your "OO-style" is fine for 2 or 3 options, I would prefer JavaBean style once you get above that. Having 20 overloaded methods for every possible combination of parameters just looks terrible
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TheLQNov 27 '10 at 19:38

1

@TheLQ: C# 4.0 makes this easier by allowing optional and named parameters in constructor and method calls.
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Robert HarveyNov 27 '10 at 22:40

@Thorbjørn Ravn Andersen, I'd say "give all arguments as parameters" is better OO-style than "call JavaBean setters" because a setter implies there is an underlying attribute being set, which by definition exposes internal details. Using the connect(..) method in the example makes no such assumption; maybe you set a user and password attributes, maybe you don't. What's important is that you focus on the right OO concept: the "connect" message.
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Andres F.Nov 21 '11 at 16:03

As a general rule, getters and setters are a bad idea. If a field isn't logically part of the interface and you make it private, that's fine. If it is logically part of the interface and you make it public, that's fine. But if you make it private and then turn around and make it effectively public again by providing a getter and setter, you're back to where you started except your code is now more verbose and obfuscated.

Obviously, there are exceptions. In Java, you might need to use interfaces. The Java standard library has backward compatibility requirements so extreme as to outweigh normal measures of code quality. It's even possible that you may actually be dealing with the legendary but rare case where there's a good chance you may later replace a stored field with on the fly calculation without otherwise breaking the interface. But these are exceptions. Getters and setters are an anti-pattern that needs special justification.

A getter and setter mean that the attribute, not the field, is part of the interface. Suppose getBirthDate() and SetBirthDate() take "yyyy/mm/dd" but the field stored is the number of days since 01/01/1000. You can change that to 01/01/0001 and the getter and setter will keep the interface the same. Especially because 'public' means publically trashable, variables should never be public; always use a setter to validate the incoming value, update any related fields, convert as needed, etc. Try to use a getter in case the internal storage changes.
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Andy CanfieldOct 4 '11 at 7:35

whether field is accesible directly or via method is not realy important.

Class invariants (usefull ones) is important.
And to preserve them, we sometimes need to not be able to change something from outside.
Eg. if we have class Square with separete width and height, changing one of them makes it become something else than square.
So we need method changeSide
If it was Rectangle, we could have setters/public field. But setter than would test whether its greater than zero would be better.

And in concrete languages (eg. java) are reasons why we need those methods (interfaces).
And another reason for method is compatibility (source and binary). So its easier to add them then think whether public field would suffice.

btw. I like to use simple immutable value holding classes with public final fields.

If getters and setters violate encapsulation and true OO than I'm seriously in trouble.

I always felt an object represents what ever best comes to mind you need it to function as.

I just finished writing a program that generates Mazes in Java, I have class that represents "Maze Squares". I have data in this class that represents coordinates, walls and booleans ect.

I have to have some way to change/manipulate/access this data! What do I do without getters and setters? Java doesn't use properties and setting all my data that is local to this class to public is DEFINITELY a violation of encapsulation and OO.

Here is the question: If you made all those fields public, and stopped using the getters and setters how would your code be different?
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 15:10

2

I'd point out: that poster eventually agreed with me and posted another answer to that effect. Essentially, using getters and setters is the same as manipulating the data directly. You don't really gain OOness by doing that. In order to be OO you ought to provide a higher level interface to the data.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 15:29

3

I think the best way of describing it would be to say that you should design your interfaces from the outside in, not the inside out. The interface your object provides should be dictated by how the object is used not how it is implemented. So don't write getters and allow external object to interpret the data. Find out what question they need answered, and write a method that answers that question. Don't allow external objects to modify state by a setter, find out what kind of manipulations they need to perform and write methods that do that.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 15:31

1

In some cases, Getters and Setters are the best method. Sometimes they are the best interface you can provide. However, in many cases they are not. In many cases, you are just leaking implementation details into other classes.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 15:32

Firstly there are broadly two types of objects which i will comment on, value and service types.

Service types should never have setters, whatever dependencies they require should not be gettable. THe best way to pass dependencies is via a constructor or factory that way all instances are fully formed from the beginning, plain and simple.

Value types should also be immutable, on the oher hand there are times when this is not practical such as an ORM, or some other mapping such as from a widget to an object. All other value types that get passed around the system from one layer or part to another should be immutable and should not have setters.

Notice it looks a lot like the first example in Java? When getters and setters are treated as first class citizens, they're not a chore to use, and the added flexibility can sometimes be a real boon - for example, we could decide to return a default value for cheese on a new fridge:

class Fridge
attr_accessor :cheese
def cheese
@cheese || 0
end
end

Of course there will be many variables that shouldn't be exposed publicly at all. Needlessly exposing internal variables will make your code worse, but you can hardly blame that on getters and setters.

A Getter/Setter is justified just like any other public method is justified. The justification is mainly because we want to provide an interface to the outside world that defines how our class interacts with other classes. We do this mainly because we want to reduce coupling between separate entities. Reduce coupling is a good thing for many reasons:

I can use from my current code the same class interface although meantime that class added new methods (but preserved the old interface)

Can change the internal representation of a class without affecting it's consumers

Reduce the chance of bugs: if you make your internal data private you can know for sure that external code won't mess with your internal data

Consider a Size class which encapsulates width and height. I can eliminate setters by using the constructor but how does that help me draw a rectangle with Size? Width and height are not internal data to the class; they're shared data that must be available to the consumers of Size.

Objects consist of behaviors and state - or attributes. If there is no exposed state then only behaviors are public.

Without state, how would you sort a collection of objects? How would you search for a specific instance of an object? If you only use constructors, what happens when your object has a long list of attributes?

No method parameter should ever be consumed without validation. Therefore it is laziness to write:

setMyField(int myField){
this.myField = myField;
}

If you do write it that way then you have at least prepared for using the setter for validation; it's better than a public field - but just barely. But at least you have a consistent public interface that you can come back and put in validation rules without breaking the code of your customers.

Getters, setters, properties, mutators, call them what you will, but they're necessary.

When the behavior "get" and "set" actually match up to behavior in your model, which is practically never.

Every other use is just a cheat because the behavior of the business domain is not clear.

Edit

That answer might have come across as flippant, so let me expand. The answers above are mostly correct but focus on the programming paradigms of OO design and some what miss the big picture. In my experience this leads people to think that avoiding gettings and setters is some academic rule for OO programming languages (e.g people think replacing getters with properties is grand)

In fact it is a consequence of the design process. You don't have to get into interfaces and encapsulation and patterns, arguing over whether it does or doesn't break these paradigms and what is or isn't good OO programming. The only point that ultimately matters is that if there is nothing in your domain that works like this by putting them in you are not modeling your domain.

The reality is that it is highly unlikely that any system in your domain space has getters and setters. You cannot walk up to the man or woman who is responsible for payroll and simply say "Set this salary to X" or "Get me this salary". Such behavior simply doesn't exist

If you are putting this into your code you are not designing your system to match the model of your domain. Yes that breaks interfaces and encapsulation, but that isn't the point. The point is that you are modelling something that doesn't exist.

More over you are probably missing an important step or process, because there is probably a reason I can't just walk up to pay roll and say set this salary to X.

When people use getters and setters they tend to push the rules for this process into the wrong place. This is moving away from your domain even more. Using the real world example, it is like salary assuming that the random person who walked in has the permission to get these values otherwise he wouldn't be asking for them. Not only is that not how the domain is, it is in fact lying about how the domain is.

If they are wrapped around authorization layers and restricted to certain external entities they are not getters and setters. I'm not saying don't have any method on the payroll department that changes the salary, but that method should align with the internal processes in place in the company itself. For example most companies set salary based on the employees contract, which is authorized by a manager. If the employee's salary changes a new contract is drawn up and a manager has to sign it. Therefore payroll should expect a contract object and some authorisation object to change pay roll
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Cormac MulhallSep 9 '14 at 14:17

1

Or to put it another way, there is quite a difference between set_salary(new_salary, employee_id) and authorized_salary_update(employee_contract, authorising_manager). The process should model the internal business process
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Cormac MulhallSep 9 '14 at 14:23

I'd hope that anything that the IDE developed by the company that develops your programming language auto generates doesn't violate the "Principles of Object Orientation".

That being said, any time you've got a public scoped variable, use a getter and a setter and you're golden. Seems to me to be the necessary element of the extremely object oriented principle of encapsulation - even if it just looks like a lot of junky code.

The reason to use them is that the proper encapsulation may yet take place and so long as you've abstracted away the layer that lets the person monkeying with your object feel your object, you can take that object away without him even knowing right?

Suffice it to say, a house divided cannot stand, one of the tenants of OO isn't going to turn on itself and you can't serve both encapsulation and premature optimization.

and what exactly did I gain by adding lots of code to call setFoo() and getFoo() everytime I deal with the variable?
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Winston EwertNov 26 '10 at 23:29

7

Here is the thing, I don't think you get encapsulation. You are still manipulating the state of the object from other places. You are just doing it more verbosely. To gain encapsulation, you need to centralize manipulation of values in the class that owns that value. Anything else is just procedural code in OO clothing. (Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it is what it is).
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Winston EwertNov 26 '10 at 23:58

1

The advantage of encapsulation is that all the logic related to particular values is in one place (more or less). I don't get that with getters and setters. Hence, I don't think I get a lot of benefit for them.
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Winston EwertNov 26 '10 at 23:59

2

I'm certainly not a fan of verbosity. But my objection is really people who make their variables private and then call getters and setters on them freely ending up with pretty much no difference. If you want to use getters/setters within your class that's fine. The question is why? The primary benefit I'm aware of there is that you can do some validation on the data to catch errors earlier. This is less helpful when all the code manipulating the data is in the same place. But it can still be helpful. Ideally, you have a language that supports properties and can avoid the verbosity.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 1:12

Getters and setters are in general extremely OOP (anyone saying anything else are wrong, simple as that).

Though you need to remember to not over engineer, never make an getter or setter that isn't needed. Any information that you aren't going to use by another class you shouldn't have any getter or setter for.

Though, the reason why you don't make fields public and instead have getters and setters are mostly:

It's not possible to make proper tests by using fields. Getters/setters are much better in that regard.

It's impossible to properly use fields in a real time programming setting. Synchronized getters/setters is the way to go.

The interface topic (already explained so I won't).

It's easier to use when properly reusing the system.

It's much harder to know which classes that's using your class and what will break if you change a field than a getter/setter.

Therefor the only time you use a public field instead of an getter/setter is when you don't make an official project but instead just doing it for fun and can't bother with the getter/setters.

+1 for testability. Shocked that nobody mentioned it earlier. Another useful feature of properties is debugging them. (much easier to insert a breakpoint in the code than require hardware/memory breakpoints for fields).
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Mark HNov 27 '10 at 18:29

8

The objection to getters and setters is that they are often used to follow the letter of OOP law while ignoring the spirit and intent. OOP says that you shouldn't allow other objects to muck with your internals. If you define getters and setters that let you do that anyways, you end up violating OOP.
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 19:23

5

I'll agree that there are many benefits of getters and setters over simple public fields. However, I'm not clear how testing is better with them. Could you explain?
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Winston EwertNov 27 '10 at 19:24

3

@Skarion: I don't agree with your answer. You seem to be presenting two alternatives: either using getters/setters or making fields public. But there is a third option: using neither getters/setters nor exposing fields! Why would you need to test for the state of an internal field? Shouldn't you be testing your object's public API?
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Andres F.Nov 21 '11 at 15:31